ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book responds to the contradictions, pleasures and tensions evoked through the narrative of becoming derby grrrl and the challenge of speaking woman, even among women, in physical cultural spaces. One woman's experience of roller derby is different from another's, and the differences, in all their complexity, are made visible in the book. The diversity of organisational forms and management challenges that this new' sport presents are all implicated in the opportunities for transformation and belonging for the individual women involved. Understanding the profoundly cultural formation of the affects, as women experience them, are what is at stake in the book. Finally, the conclusion discusses the implications of the ways in which power and affects circulate in a sport such as roller derby.
